Reading's lead councillor for education and children’s services has promised parents Coley Park After School club would not close while Labour was in charge.

Reading's lead councillor for education and children’s services has promised parents Coley Park After School club would not close while Labour was in charge.

At a meeting at St Mary and All Saints’ Primary School in Wensley Road, Coley Park, Cllr John Ennis insisted the club would stay open, even if it meant placing a further burden on the taxpayer.

The Reading Post’s sister paper, getreading, previously reported how parents feared the club was under threat from closure after receiving a letter from Reading Borough Council last month.

Many felt they had been left in the dark over the future of the club based at Coley Park Community Centre.

Cllr Ennis apologised to parents for the lack of information but maintained the club would not fold, despite it being currently unsustainable due to low numbers of children attending.

He said: “Let me be quite clear, this club is not closing.

“We will find the money to keep this club running whether from the council tax payer or elsewhere.

“We will continue to do that until we can make it more viable.”

Around 20 parents attended the meeting with a petition, signed by 147 people, urging the council not to close the facility which was to be sent to the authority.

Concerns were raised that losing the club would force more people to give up work in a part of town, where there is already a high proportion of stay-at-home parents, with no other provision nearby.

Parents also told how numbers had fallen following plans to raise the cost of the club from £10 to £15 under the previous administration – but they had not been told this had been scrapped by Labour when they came into power in May.

Suggestions were made to offer a discount if families had more than one child using the club and to look at the rent being charged by the community centre.

Earlier, Theresa Shortland, head of early years and extended services, explained the club’s catchment included Coley, Southcote and St Mary and All Saints schools, but provision already at Coley and Southcote meant less than half the club’s registered capacity of 32 children used the club which meant the council was faced with a heavier subsidy per child.

She added that RBC had embarked on a marketing campaign to promote after school clubs and was working with schools to ask them to take responsibility for provision.

Maureen Fenwick, acting headteacher of St Mary and All Saints, said discussions were still at an early stage but that the school was broadly supportive of this proposal.

She said: “I know staff are very keen to make sure there is after school provision. We do not want to lose you as parents because there isn’t any, and want to work with the local authority to provide the best care we can.”

Cllr Ennis explained two other clubs, Waterloo Meadows and South Reading, had taken up this option while a similar proposal for East Reading After School Club was being considered by New Town Primary School.

He insisted funding was secured until July and urged parents to work with the council to spread the word in a bid to drive up numbers at the club.